You Are The Moon
by Cap'n Coree
Summary: In her last moments, Fuu remembers and regrets. Fuugen
1. Marionette

**You Are The Moon**

Cap'n Coree

Chapter One: Shadows on The Wall

The lanterns hung just outside the window. Glowing a surreal orange as they swayed in the wind, just outside of her reach. Her vision blurred and focused repeatedly as she struggled for conciousness, causing the lanterns to look like sprites, coming to ferry her away.

_'This is it,'_ she thought, resigned to her fate. She could feel her blood slip through her fingers like lace and pool on the floor. Her life was slipping away.

Against the thin paper screen she could see shadows clashing against one another, not unlike a marionette show she had seen as a child. She could hear the distant din of swords clashing against one another, and she knew he was on his way.

None of that mattered now. All that mattered was the distant bob of the orange light, and the soft rush of blood against her palm. This really was it. The end.

Was she bitter? Happy?

She didn't have the energy to decide anymore. Softly her head dipped down to rest in the blood gathering below her and her eyes drooped.

She could faintly recall the beginning..

Someone was calling her name..

_'Fuu?'_

_'Fuu?!'_

_--------_

A.N: I know it's short, but it's a start, and that more than I've had for a long time now.

Been through a lot lately. Mother passed away, and I'm starting college in a month or so.

I'm going to try to get back to writing.


	2. Deja vu

**You Are The Moon**

Cap'n Coree

Darkness had caved in and then given way to the soft protruding light , light that should have shocked the eyes. But her eyes suffered no pain from the change, and she could only assume that this was because the light simply wasn't real. _And, _she thought hesitantly, _perhaps my eyes aren't as well.._

Regardless of the reality of the situation, Fuu certainly felt real, real, and comparatively better than she had. The pooling blood that had surrounded her had disappeared, along with the wound. Her hands now clutched at the pink kimono she hadn't worn in a year or more, and her skin seemed sweet, supple, and unblemished.

Her eyes, regardless of their validity, probed her new surrounding, and she found she was on a beach, staring out into the gently tumbling ocean, the soft breeze brushing salt through her hair. She was, as far as she could tell, at the very spot she they had chosen to meet at after they had all gone their separate ways. As if to confirm her suspicion a voice carried itself across the beach, echoing strangely in her ears, causing her skin to burst into goosebumps with the sheer sense of deja vu,

"Fuu!"

"Hey FUU!"

For a moment, she believed she was once more laying on the cold floor, blood seeping as she watched the shadows against the wall and she clutched her kimono once to make sure, but there was no urgency in this voice. She began to believe it had all been a bad dream, all of it, the blood, the events leading up to it. Perhaps she had simply fallen asleep on the beach, waiting for them, and dreamed it all.

"Is that really you or some unfortunate board washed up from the ocean?" he bobbed into view, a vicious grin spread across his tan, dusty skin. Even though the overwhelming sense of how very familiar it all was was tugging at her heart, trying to draw her attention to the peril she was in, she disregarded it. _'Why shouldn't he be familiar?' _Fuu thought, _'We only spent every day together…'_

'_It looks like you ain't such a little girl anymore after all, huh? Or are those budding lumps a family of squirrels tucked away in there?'_

The voice rose like vapor into her mind and she gasped, clutching her head for a moment to massage away the pain it had brought. Once again blood flowed into her cheeks and she looked down to regard her self. She was getting older. Strangely, however, she remembered her body being even more mature than it was now. She could see the sleeping form of Momo on top of her breast, and she remembered, at the same time, him not being there.

_'Just a dream….and just my silly heart.'_

She stood up, hands on her hips and hollered across the beach to his approaching form, "Late as usual, wheres Jin?"

"Ah how should I know," he replied dropping down into the sand, "never expected him to be late, figure it'd be an _insult to his honor._" His voice for a moment lost its gravelly tone and tried to effect the solemn severity of their missing companion. The attempt was poor, and strange, which to Fuu was a relief, and she found herself chuckling slightly and dropping to the sand next to him.

"So how are things Mugen, what have you been doing?" she asked, adjusting herself into a comfortable position to sit and wait for Jin.

"Oh, the usual, boozing, fighting, fucking," he snickered and watched the slight tinge of pink raise into her face at his vulgarity. But enough time in his company had jaded her slightly. Just as enough time in hers had changed them both. Mugen couldn't believe he had actually allowed himself to be drawn to this beach for a 'reunion.' He and Jin had insisted to one another that it was simply for another match, but Mugen, upon seeing Fuu, felt a hole, tiny albeit, fill up suddenly. He felt, though he'd never admit it, giddy.

"Well, we better make the best of the time Jin isn't here, huh?" he said slyly, running a coarse hand through his hair as if it could somehow tame it.

Fuu's eye brow twitched, and she looked at Mugen sharply. She knew he was just trying to get a rise out of her, and she was determined not to allow it, not to play into his hand. She was older now, and had to deal with this kind of thug all the time when she was serving old lecherous men. This was no different.

"It looks like you ain't such a little girl anymore after all, huh? Or are those budding lumps a family of squirrels tucked away in there?" his face adopted the look of a curious little boy, his hand reached towards the neck of her pink kimono,

_and all the color bled out of the world._


	3. Glass

You Are The Moon

Cap'n Coree

Fuu watched as the world drained of color and slowed to a stop, she watched Mugen frozen in his grab for her kimono, and Jin, who had approaching from behind, a look of irritation on his face, his hand on the hilt of his sword, and then she saw her own form. In a panic she attempted to lurch forward, to grab onto her body, but she found a force pushing her back, and a snag in her back pulling her away as if she were a fish attached to a line.

"No," she moaned, her eyes darting from her own body to Mugen, then to Jin, both still frozen and colorless, "no, no, no." She scrambled in midair, trying to catch hold of something to slow her down, but to no avail. Resigned she fixed Mugen in her eyes, some internal, if there was any such thing that could be called internal since she left her body, force urging her to remember, to fix him in her mind.

_'You forgot,' _ she heard both her own, and Mugen's voice mingle together in her mind, accusing, _'You forgot already!' _The accusation hit her with a strange force, and her vision began to tunnel, and fade once more, and she sank into darkness.

Slowly the world came back into view. Fuu was back on the beach, her head aching and spinning. Cautiously, she lifted herself up and looked around her. She was alone, which was strange, and even stranger was the consistency of the sand she was sitting upon. It was hard and small, formed into perfect circles. Fuu scooped a handful up to her face to examine and saw that the sand was comprised of small glass balls of varying size. They rolled with a small tinkling back to their home among the other glass ocean sat just as it had, but it was still and black, and the air was stagnant and free of the usual cry of gulls. She had to stubble to get up, for each time she stood she seemed to roll, an once she did find her feet, she fell back and her head began to sink into the sand of glass balls.

_'You FORGOT!' _ The scream wrung out in her head, and she saw reflected in the small glass balls miniatures of her own eyes widening into terror. Her arms flailed, and she found herself sinking into the glass balls. She clenched her eyes shut, unable to take looking into her own terrified eyes, and swallowed her breath.

_'Someone please help me,' _ she plead, and felt her descent slow. Something was gripping her hand, pulling her up. Quickly she emerged from the pile of glass balls, and found herself hoisted up by her kimono to her feet. Steadying herself against her savior she braved a look.

She was leaning against a man, nearly as colorless as the scene she had left on the beach, pale with black eyes, and rough, white hair that stood up as if it were a tangled halo on top of his head. On his chin there were small black hairs poking out in scraggly bunches. He wore a black robe sewn with white and gray trim. The dull colors intermingled together and gave him a blurred appearance. He was watching her in an almost despondent, distant manner as she clung to him, afraid to let go incase the balls swallowed her once more.

"Are you alright now?" he asked, taking her hands off of him and dropping them down to her side.

Of all the words Fuu could use to describe herself alright was not one of them, so she chose to disregard this statement, and countered with her own question, "Where am I?"

His pale eyebrows arched slightly and he surveyed the area around them, "Where would you say you are?"

"On a beach, I'd guess, but not like anyone I've ever seen. You mean you don't know?" Fuu asked.

"I suppose I do and suppose I don't." he replied, bored, "I have always been here, but it isn't always here."

"What do you mean?" Fuu scowled. There was a pain in her stomach and she lurched forward, clutching her gut.

"It means that it changes, its never the same, when the," his voice trailed off as Fuu fell once more to the waiting glass globes bellow, her own anguished face reflected a thousand times back at her, the white and black blur behind her staring despondently out at the black ocean.

A pulse, standing at the end of an aisle, a white kimono, flowing softly through her fingers, a warm body in the dark.. then..

light, light so bright it should be blinding but,

"Sheesh, thats a lot of nerve you have attacking a guy from behind like that," Mugen growled, rubbing the back of his head.

it's not.

"Are you alright Fuu?" Jin asked, looking past Mugen to Fuu's pale face.

"Do you think she's in shock?" Mugen asked, poking her face slightly. Fuu twitched, then smacked the hand away.

"Cut it out Mugen!" She clutched her stomach once more. "I, I'm al right.. just had a bad dream I think."


End file.
